The Second Presidential Debate: It Was All About Personal Attacks

The Second Presidential Debate witnessed another clash of words between the two Presidential Candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Sunday at Washington University, St.Louis. The atmosphere was tensed as the customary handshake was ignored by both of them. Harsh words and accusations were exchanged and Donald Trump accused the moderators, Martha Raddatz of ABC News and Anderson Cooper of CNN for biased and unfair treatment.

FORMAT: The second Presidential debate was dedicated to the voters and they asked the questions from Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on various problems faced by them in the USA. Hillary Clinton won the coin toss and she was first one to answer.

Here are some of the important questions and their answers were given by Trump and Clinton.

1. The question was raised by Patrice Brock and he asked the candidates to give their view on ‘how they feel their behavior is impacting the youth of the country?’

Hillary Clinton: She stated that it is important to show and teach their children that America is a great country and they should respect and support each other. She thinks that if America works as one, then they can achieve anything in the world, therefore her slogan for the campaign is ‘Stronger Together’.

Donald Trump: He agreed with what Clinton said and it came as a shock to everyone sitting there and watching the debate on television worldwide. He also believed that the country has great potential and he aims to help the citizens to achieve their personal goals complementing the growth of America as a nation. His remarks on this question came as a surprise because in the previous debate he stated about forcing all the immigrants out of the country for the betterment of the nation. (nice save Mr. Trump)

In the ten minutes open debate after the answers, moderator Anderson Cooper asked Trump about the tape that was released on Friday containing his outrageous remarks on women. Answering to the allegations, he apologized for his statements and said that he has great respect for women. Trump tried to ignore any further questions on this topic by diverting to other issues like ISIS and economy, but the moderator was keen on talking about the footage to which Mr. Trump accused him of being biased.

Hillary Clinton also commented on the issue and said that now the whole world knows, who Donald Trump really is and it is not only about women but in Mr. Trump has also disrespected communities like Afro-Americans, Muslims, Latinos and many others in his earlier remarks.

2. Ken Karpowicz asked about their views on Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare which is not affordable in reality.

Hillary Clinton: She said that her Government will fix whatever is wrong with the act. According to her, the scheme is a good one but there are some loopholes that need to be fixed like increasing premiums, high drug costs etc.

Donald Trump: According to him the act is a disaster and it needs to be replaced by another scheme. The scheme has cost The American Government around 20 Trillion Dollars till now and this has increased the tax burden on the Government.

In the open debate moderator, Cooper asked Hillary Clinton about her husband’s comments on Obamacare which state that the Act is a disaster and the premiums are almost double while the coverage amounts to only half of the premium. Hillary had nothing much to answer as she only talked about how to change the policies in the act to make it better.(That was not what we wanted to listen)

Donald trump also tried to provoke Hillary to say something about her husband’s statement but all she said was “He (Bill Clinton) has already clarified what he meant”.

3. Gorbah Hamed asked, “Since the word Islamophobia is on the rise, how will you help Muslims like me to deal with the consequences of being labeled as a threat to the Nation”?

Donald Trump: He asked all the Muslims to report such hatred cases with the official, so that, the government can tackle the situation. Trump also accused Barack Obama of never focusing on Racial Islamic Terror.

Hillary Clinton: She said that in order to make America safe for Muslims, it is important to make them our eyes and ears on the front line. There are various Muslims sitting at high post in America and they should help the government to tackle this problem. According to her, It is also important to defeat ISIS as this group is responsible for the problems all the Muslims are facing all over the world.

Hillary Clinton further criticized Trump for his remarks on Muslims earlier, in which he stated that the only solution to this problem is to ban Muslims to enter in America and throw out the ones who are already residing there. To counter the allegations, Trump said that America is allowing everyone to enter into the system and settle here and nobody knows exactly where are they from. This will increase the burden on the American Government both Financially and Politically.

4. Spencer Maass asked about their views on tax policies in the country and how are they planning to make wealthy people pay their fair share?

Donald Trump: He plans on reducing the Corporate taxes from 35% to 15% because he thinks that due to the high tax rates, many big companies are opting to stop its operations and the small ones are not able to establish themselves in the market.

Hillary Clinton: She said that anyone who is not earning more than $250000 annually will not be subjected to tax raises. Clinton also wanted to increase the surcharge on people earning more than $5 Million.

In the open debate, Hillary Clinton said that Donald Trump’s plans to reduce corporate tax by 20 percent will increase the tax burden on millions and millions of middle-class family and will also reduce Government’s revenue. She also accused Donald Trump of thinking only about the Business class people like himself. On the other hand, Trump accused Hillary Clinton of not implementing her tax policies in her previous term as Senator.

5. Diane from Pennsylvania asked about what both the candidates would have done to tackle the Syrian Problem if they were the President of United States of America.?

Hillary Clinton: She said that she feels bad about the people still living in Syria and Russia’s continuous Air Strikes in the areas where a large number of civilians are still trapped. She also stated “ I do not want American troops in Syria. I would rather go after Baghdadi and arm the Kurds. I know about the concerns in arming but arming the Kurds is the best way of handling it.”

Donald Trump: He said that the only way to tackle this problem is to send more American troops in Syria and end the problem once and for all.

Not much happened in the 10 minute debate as both the candidates were focused on proving their plan superior to the other.

At the end of the debate both the candidates finally shook their hands but there were various occasions where the tensions between them crossed the ceiling.

The word war is getting intense after each encounter and the final one scheduled at University Of Nevada, Las Vegas on 19th October, 2016 and the hype is expected to be the strongest.

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10 October
Rohan Jaitly